The National Business Aviation Association (NBAA) has always been at the forefront of modern communication when it comes to online presence. Jason Wolf and his @NBAA team are a well organized group that has embraced modern communication methods and taken on the web as a way to get the association’s voice heard to promote and protect the work of its members.

As with many other industries, Twitter has now become the de-facto “news feed” to get the pulse of aviation in real time. Organizers that fail to organize and promote their event using Twitter will struggle to reach the potential audience interested in knowing what is happening at the event “live”. Looking at the online statistics from the show, you can see that the event was well covered on Twitter.

It is interesting to compare these results with the twitter presence from the show three years ago. We now have three times the number of posts by much more influencial users, resulting in a potential reach of over 34 million people. It was the well organized campaign by NBAA to create, promote and leverage the #NBAA14 hashtag that provided such great results. They would have been even better if NBAA had brought the companies that were posting in #NBAA2014 back to the mainstream.

2 – CREATE YOUR OWN CONTENT

Many AeroSpace events are organized by marketing companies or news organizations. However, NBAA directly sets-up their own convention as an annual business event for their members. And instead of relying exclusively on external sources to cover the show online, NBAA invests significantly on producing their own content in what they call the “NBAA Online News Bureau“. Since they are the organizers, they are in a position of strength when it comes to exclusive content and news “scoops”. The content produced online was as follows:

Compared to the data from the 2011 convention, AIN still leads in editorial volume, AviationWeek continues to improve its online coverage, while FlightGlobal loses ground and struggles to keep up. This is consistent with what I saw at Farnborough earlier this year. It is also interesting to note that Vertical Magazine (@VerticalMag) was the only main Helicopter magazine to report in the #NBAA14 feed. Finally, it was good to see the extensive coverage from Jon Ostrower of Wall Street journal with great insight during the whole event.

Although the main AeroSpace news organizations still produce their traditional in-depth news coverage, I feel that NBAA was the “go to” source to find out what was happening “live” at the convention. Their extensive use of video allowed remote industry people to effectively get glimpses of what was going on, in daily recaps for example.

3 – GET INFLUENCERS TO PARTICIPATE

The measure of the success of an event when it comes to online coverage cannot be limited to what the organizers or main news sources post, but it is also measured by what other influencing organizations posts about it. Here are the top contributors to the #NBAA14 stream by Klout.

This list includes all the major airframe manufacturers (Beechcraft, Bombardier, Cessna, Dassault Aviation, GulfStream) and main avionics and engine providers (Honeywell, Garmin, Rockwell Collins, Safran; as well as GE Jet Engines, Pratt & Withney). This list is a definite validation of the event’s importance and of Twitter in general.

What did you think of the online coverage of the NBAA convention? What did you like, what did you miss? Please contribute below.

Last week in Barcelona marked the annual general assembly of the European Region Airlines Association (ERA). This group represents the interests of intra-European aviation in Europe. ERA’s membership is composed of 51 airlines (mostly low-fare and/or regional), 21 airports, 10 manufacturers and 116 suppliers. Although this event is always well attended, this industry in particular is strapped for time and resources, leaving many to watch the proceeding from afar. In this post, I analyze how the event was covered online.

The organizers posted 49 updates on twitter throughout the event both aimed at attendees as well as the broader audience watching from home. It is for them that I wish ERA had posted daily summaries as promised (only day 1 was posted), perhaps even in video. But news was also delivered by specialty publication Low-fare and Regional Airlines (@news_LARA) and its team attending the event. It was disappointing that FlightGlobal did not report on the event at all.

THE AIRLINES

Although the association counts 51 airlines in its membership NONE of them reported anything online. They were called out explicitly in some tweets (for example for winning awards) but did not seem to be listening. Even the airports in the association did better than the airlines (especially Shannon Airport after winning Airport Achievement award). So I guess that the airlines are limiting their Twitter and other online interactions for customer service.

But my question is: if there is so much benefit and requirement to interact online with customers, how could there be apparently no benefit in interacting with suppliers and manufacturers? I am not suggesting mixing the two conversations (B2C for passengers and B2B with suppliers), but it is strange to see this dichotomy between the two sides of the house at most airlines.

THE EXHIBITOR

Out of the 29 exhibitors at the event, two-thrid have Twitter accounts. But for strange reasons only 4 of them decided to use it for ERA14. @ATRaircraft and @PWcanada where the most active, as you can see from their influence in the topic cloud above. Pratt & Whitney also cleverly used the occasion to promote the 30th anniversary of the PW100 engine series. @Bombardier_aero and @SuperJetIntl (Sukoi) also jumped into the conversation but there was no sign of Embrear or Saab. It is sad to see that other exhibitors that usually do a good job at covering other events online, did not bother to participate, especially when their competitors are there!

What did you think of the online coverage at the show? What was missing? What would you like to see in the future? Feel free to leave a comment below and start the conversation.

Over 146 thousand fans on FaceBook? I had to find out more from Vertical magazine. Elan Head, their award-winning Special Projects Editor and an accomplished helicopter pilot and instructor, agreed to an in-depth interview. It turns out she has put a lot of thoughts in the use of the internet in the commercial helicopter industry, especially when it comes to safety.

Elan started by explaining that “Our weekly total reach on Facebook is typically around 300,000 to 400,000, although it has been as high as 2.3 million. Our weekly engagement is typically around 10 percent of our total reach. Our target audience is the helicopter operators, i.e. the people that buy, fly and maintain helicopters. We are proud that a full half of the fans are are in the 18-34 age group with another 21 percent in the 35-44 age group. 76% are from outside the USA.” These are impressive numbers and they reveal an entire group of people not necessarily engaged in B2B sites, traditional industry media, or Twitter. But perhaps they are just a bunch of Helicopter Geeks (#HeloGeeks), fascinated by beautiful photographs of helicopters? “We find that all our Facebook fans have a great passion for helicopters but also have a tremendous amount of insight and comments”, responded Elan, “It is not rare for us to derive great story ideas for the magazine from discussions that initiated on FaceBook. We also know they are industry professionals, because one of our most popular article online is a 5,000-word story on attitude indicators, reflecting our audience’s passion and personal investment in the business.”

Discussing this audience on FaceBook, we came to the conclusion that they prefer this medium because they can engage in the conversation as an individual rather than a representative of their business. This is perhaps a symptom of the continued disengagement between management and the people on the front lines when it comes to business and particularly safety. The discussion at a B2B level is quite different that the “in the tranches” remarks found in FaceBook comments. There is really no online forum where real industry issues can be discussed away from the eyes of the general public but without the distortions of corporate “policies”.

Elan said that Vertical’s social media presence has, in fact, evolved pretty naturally from their traditional identity as a print magazine: “By targeting operators, Vertical Magazine has always been close to the front lines of the helicopter industry, which are populated by people who are incredibly passionate about all things helicopter. I think that’s the passion you see reflected in our Facebook page, which has become a place for people to share photos and videos of their helicopter operations from around the world. Facebook is not a medium for sharing hourly news updates, but when we do share significant stories, they tend to generate a lot of shares and lively conversation. Our migration to Twitter has followed the migration of helicopter operators and their employees to that platform — which has certainly happened, but I do think it has lagged behind the fixed-wing world. The general online conservatism of the helicopter industry may have something to do with the fact that a lot of people in it do spend six or eight months of the year in the bush… if you get antsy without being able to check your phone every five minutes, you’re not going to do very well in a remote fire or mining camp.”

The role of traditional magazine in the online landscape

Vertical’s online presence evolved from a magazine focused on in-depth articles and gorgeous pictures, printed on glossy paper 6 times a year. They are trying to tackle the challenge of maintaining credibility not only with the industry’s C-level executives, but also with the helicopter pilot and field mechanics who spend eight months out of the year in the bush. But with a new generation of professionals and a greater portion of the industry connected online, breaking news is certainly becoming more important. This has been demonstrated by the arrival of new “hot-news-only” players like HeliHub.com that have found a niche in the online commercial helicopter audience. The increasing competitive pressure to post press releases on line as soon as possible, along with the fact that there are over 4 PR people for every journalist employed in the USA, worries Elan who is passionate about journalistic integrity and PR curration: “we are increasing our ability to devote the necessary resources to help grow our original online coverage.” To that end, Vertical has recently hired Rotor & Wing’s editor-in-chief, Andrew Parker. Despite this effort, it has not traditionally been the vocation of Vertical magazine to fill this “hot news” gap.

A strong and central “voice of the industry” still lacking

Elan agrees that there is room for a sort of “community site” for professionals by professionals. This could be a sort of “industry private” hub, linking to content from existing sources such as Vertical’s in depth stories, acting as the voice of the industry when incorrect or misleading reports appear in traditional media, and offer a practical use of online collaboration and discussion tools to improve commercial helicopter industry efficiency and safety. When I asked her who should create this online presence, she simply answered: “That is a very good question!”

Do you think that there is a need for such community site? If so, who should manage it: an association, a magazine, others? What should be their mission and site content? Feel free to leave your comments below.

According to the National Aerospace Week website, this event was established by the Aerospace Industries Association in 2010 as “an opportunity for the aerospace industry and its supporters to recognize the enormous contribution that the industry makes to America’s economy, competitiveness and national security.” To support the effort, both houses of Congress issued a resolution on September 13, 2010 establishing the third week in September annually as National Aerospace Week. AIA subsequently launched the hashtag #AeroWeek to facilitate the exchange of information online during this event. On the occasion of its fifth edition, I wanted to see how well the event was covered online. I tracked National AeroSpace Week activity online during the week of September 14-20, 2014 and tried to assess how well the event was promoted; who were the main influencers; and how companies as well as government entities took part. Here are my findings.

AEROWEEK 2014 ONLINE COVERAGE

In terms of numbers, there was descent activity online during the week, with over 300 twitter posts reaching 715,000 users and 1.6M impressions. These are not bad results, especially because there was very little traffic about this event online prior to September 14.
AIA, the event organizer, did a good promotion effort throughout the week, posting and re-tweeting information from various sources, posting on FaceBook, as well as keeping the dedicated website updated. Adam Kostecki, Manager of Communications for AIA reported that the event website received 2,182 unique visitors for 3,902 pageviews during the 7-day period. “It was the level of online coverage we expected for this event”, said Kostecki, “on par with what we saw in the last couple of years.” When looking at who else was talking about National AeroSpace Week online, three groups were represented:

Business: Honeywell, Deloitte, Wire Masters, and ATK were the most active businesses throwing their support behind the event. @Honeywell was particularly good with many uplifting and fun posts throughout the week. Out of the other major AeroSpace companies, there were only a couple of “timid” posts from Boeing Defense and Rockwell Collins. I noticed a glaring absence of online support from Lockheed Martin, UTC AeroSystems, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, and GEAviation, just to name the top AeroSpace companies in the US. Asked about this absence, Kostecki explains that “each of these companies support the industry in many ways throughout the year. Because this is a US Government established event, they probably feel that it is best for the AIA, the association in charge of representing their interests on Capitol Hill, to be active on their behalf.”

So, overall, this was a good event for AIA, but I cannot help but feel that it could have been a lot more. If the US Government proclaimed that the third week of September should highlight AeroSpace, I think the industry should take that opportunity to show the rest of the country what it is all about in a much more prominent way.

SUGGESTIONS FOR NEXT YEAR

I think the AeroSpace industry already has enough “physical” meetings, so National AeroSpace Week could very well be a “Virtual” event happening online and with the purpose of being picked-up by the mainstream media and educational institutions at all levels. Here are a few ideas that could be considered for AeroWeek 2015:

AIA could create an online committee of volunteers to prepare and coordinate #AeroWeek online. Volunteers should be recruited from the most active users from industry and media this year.

#AeroWeek should be promoted online well ahead of the actual event. There should be a series of online activities scheduled throughout the week. For example, AIA could promote “Why AeroSpace matters to the economy?” Day to financial media, “The benefits of an career in AeroSpace” Day to high school students and science media (Pehaps using the #AskACurator example with Engineers?), or “The Impact of AeroSpace industry on day-to-day travel and commerce” Day to main stream media.

AIA could launch the week with a “State of AeroSpace” broadcast and an online inventory of all the outreach initiatives by its members throughout the year. AeroWeek should not be the event itself, but rather a chance for the industry to shine the spotlight on what it does for the USA and the world during the other 51 weeks of the year.

The committee should enroll, in advance, the support of the main aerospace businesses and industry media to support the event online. They should be asked to post articles around the theme “Why is AeroSpace important for the USA?” from corporate CEOs, government representatives, and major personalities (e.g. Harrison Ford and John Travolta?).

Do you have other feedback from this year’s AeroWeek? Do you have other ideas for AeroWeek 2015? Please leave your comments below.

Civil Helicopter Aviation is booming. A recent study by Visiongain has determined that the value of the global civil helicopter market in 2014 will reach B$7.4 up from B$2 just six years ago. FlightGlobal Ascend predicts that the total in-service fleet will grow to over 28,000 helicopters by 2024. Yet, when it comes to online news and information for this sector, there is a big void on the internet.

CIVIL HELICOPTER COMMUNITY ABANDONED BY TRADITIONAL MEDIA?

Out of the three major Aerospace media publishers, AINOnline is the only one that offers a specific rotorcraft channel on its website. AviationWeek and FlightGlobal report helicopter news in their civil aviation section, mixed with all the other news. FlightGlobal used to have a dedicated website section and even a Twitter feed (@FG_Helicopters), but they abandoned it in 2013 even though they had over 3000 followers.
The main helicopter magazines have attempted to transition online but with mixed results. The statistics for the top sources of online news for this segment both in terms of unique visitors to their websites, as well as number of followers on Twitter, are very low. The best positioned in terms of followers is Rotor And Wing magazine with over 10,000 followers. [It turns out that Vertical magazine has many more fans on FaceBook] It is interesting to note the success of HeliHub.com, a pure online news site from the UK, run by Jeremy Parkin out of his home with the collaboration of a network of #AvGeeks from around the world. The site has quickly signed up over 5000 followers and boasts the best daily average of unique visitor of all the online sources. But if you compare the top three helicopter news sites on Twitter, you realize that they overlap significantly, accounting for less than 15,000 unique followers.

The people of the industry are online, but they are going straight to the manufacturers to get information and news.

NO LEADERSHIP FROM HELICOPTER ASSOCIATION INTERNATIONAL (HAI)?

I think that leadership is gravely lacking when it comes to improve the civil helicopter industry using the web. Unfortunately, the main industry association (HAI), organizer of the largest helicopter event in the world (HeliExpo is attended by 20,000 visitors), continues to lack motivation, direction, and expertise in this area. Their own online presence is amateurish compared to other aerospace association (e.g. @NBAA) resulting in dismal online statistics (they have three different twitter handles reaching just 3000 unique followers combined).

HAI owes it to the industry to get its house in order and become a modern association. Beyond leading by example, HAI should also do three things immediately:

Create an industry hashtag, as THERE IS NONE RIGH NOW!!!! (Here is why this is important). Once it is created, promote the hashtag with news organization and companies to create a real “channel” online.

I have been saying for several years that the way our industry shares news online is antiquated compared to the mainstream media and the specialized news of other industries. After decades of printing “cold news” on a weekly and monthly basis, the main AeroSpace and Defense media organizations have yet to fully adapt to the online world of “hot news”. Although organizations such as AviationWeek have made great strides in trying to report industry news as it happens, it is mostly left to the personal initiative of their journalists to write up and post breaking news online. Unfortunately, such task is not their top priority and often if an incident does not happen during normal business hours it does not get reported until much later or not at all.

Yet, most general media from CNN, to BBC News, to local News will cover any airline or airports incidents or breaking news immediately. Unfortunately, the stories often end up in the hands of unqualified journalist with disastrous consequences when it comes to accuracy or relevancy. Without the counter balance of the specialized media reporting accurate/corrected information immediately, it opens up a gap in breaking news coverage, particularly in the domain commercial aviation.

AirLiveNet, the online source for commercial aviation breaking news

@AirLiveNet started to pick up a following during the #MH370 events, and maintained its presence through the succession of major commercial aviation news of the last few months (#MH17, #AH5017, #Bardarbunga). The focus, timeliness and accuracy of AirLiveNet tweets is definitely its competitive advantage. They only report on commercial aviation “hot news” especially incidents; no distractions, no fillers, no cold news. They are usually the first to report a flight emergency, route diversion, airport incident, or squawking anomaly. They usually back it up with accurate flight radar data, correct airplane pictures, and often photos and videos from the scene. How successful have they been in the 10 months since their launch? They now have over 15,600 followers. That is over 3000 more followers than @AINonline!

So who is behind this success and what are their plans?

I tracked down and interviewed the site owner to find out more. “Seb” is a self declared #AvGeek who resides in Paris, France. He launched the site at the end of last year to “fill the gap” in commercial aviation news. Seb said: “I thought that with tools like flightradar24 and other sophisticated internet search engines, individuals with even limited knowledge of the commercial aviation business could probably do a decent job in providing breaking news information online. I felt that we could do it more accurately than the general media, and more quickly than the specialized aviation media.” He excitedly retells the story of the coverage of the Air Algeria #AH5017 crash in August. They were the first ones to report the actual flight number and last known flight path of the airplane. They continued the coverage minute-by-minute, and when a french television station had the first video of the crash site, relayed from a Mali Army briefing, they were the first ones to put it out on twitter.

Seb started AirLiveNet as a “hobby” with a simple twitter feed and a blog page to store the referenced information he posted. He set up the right reporting in flightradar24 and other flight tracking sites, and built several “search robots” to alert him of any incident in real time. When asked about the breadth of coverage available on AirLiveNet, he explains: “I was quickly joined by other volunteers who offered to help curate the alerts and feed the site, providing us with a round-the-clock coverage of the industry.” AirLiveNet is now a network of about 5 volunteers spread out geographically. In addition, a number of local news organizations are sending them information directly. “A real indication of the service we provide is when last weekend, for example, a local Norwegian news outfit sent us the video of an emergency landing in Oslo right after it happened”, said Seb.

AirLiveNet follows in the footsteps of @NYCAviation, another “grass root” aviation news site that started as a plane spotting publication focused on New York City in 2003. It now has over 38,000 followers. Although less focused on commercial aviation than AirLiveNet, NYCAviation (motto: “serving airborne amazingness from around the world”) frequently breaks aviation news stories ahead of any other outlets. The site is now an advertising-based commercial site that provides consulting and expert TV appearances to major news organizations. NYCAviation also sees its editorial content regularly referenced in, or syndicated out to traditional media outlets.

When asked about the future of AirLiveNet, Seb explains: “I would like to grow my network of volunteers to augment the geographic coverage we provide, particularly in North America. I do not have plans to turn AirLiveNet into a full commercial venture for the moment. The general banner ads currently on the site basically cover the small hosting and application license costs, but with 15,000 followers in such a short time, I am starting to wonder if we have unintentionally created a real business.”

AirLiveNet and NYCAviation are definitely teaching a lesson in “hot news” reporting for our industry. If the major aviation news organizations will not staff round-the-clock breaking news networks, they will need to syndicate this kind of content or face increasing competition for audience and recognition. Online breaking news coverage is an entirely new world and you cannot just “evolve” into it. As AirLiveNet is proving, you probably need to be born from it.

It is now undeniable that Twitter has finally gained ground in the Aerospace industry. Recent statistics show that all the major players, news organizations and government agencies have taken to the medium to increase communication velocity and strengthen collaboration. Ideas sharing on such an open forum, with the proper use of hashtags of course, can lead to connections, conversations, and collaborations with companies and indeed people you have never met or didn’t even know existed. But to many seasoned professionals, this feels a bit “disembodied” compared to the traditional way of doing business. That is where a TweetUp can help.

A tweetup is an organized, in-person gathering of people on Twitter. The word tweetup is an amalgamation of the words “tweet” and “meetup”. TweetUps have become an integral part of today’s social business climate. The usual reason for a tweetup is to gather people with the same interests to share ideas and make friends in person and strengthen personal networks.

In aerospace, TweetUps were pioneered most successfully by NASA who started them as early as 2009. These events provided guests with VIP access to NASA facilities and speakers with the goal of leveraging participants’ social networks to further the outreach requirements of NASA. They have held over 80 events, resulting in in a massive growth in @NASA followers, standing currently well over 7.3 Million!

The MRO sector of Aerospace was a pioneer in the use of Twitter, with #AVMRO one of the first specific topic established in the industry. AviationWeek has promoted the use of Twitter for a long time at its MRO events (See report from April 2009 – “Use of Twitter takes off at MRO Americas”) and it is a natural evolution for them to organize TweetUps around these gatherings.

So if you are going to the show, or will be watching from afar, if you are an expert in social business, or a novice at Twitter, you ought to participate to this event, as it will definitely give you an insight as how MRO business will be conducted by the new generation or professionals.

Wow, how insightful! In fact, it was established by Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) in 1935 on the occasion of Orville Wright’s birthday (He was 64 years old at the time and still alive). FDR was in fact the first sitting president that had an airplane as the Washington Post mentioned in their #AvDay post.

As the day unfolded on Twitter, I felt very proud of being part of this industry. Thousands of people took to the medium to celebrate their love of aviation by posting inspiring quotes, memories and pictures. Here are some of my favorites.

@NYCAviation was one of the most active accounts all day and posted the best quote:

And the love for Aviation from #AvGeeks kept coming all day long with some great original quotes.

#AvDay aviation to me means freedom, great views, & indulgence in the most technical of pursuits. I'm a gearhead & it's right up my alley.

My only disappointment was that the industry press did not really take advantage of this day for self-reflection or promotion. @ATWonline, @AINonline and @FlightGlobal did not even mention the day. A couple of the staff members from @AviationWeek did, but this post from their Social Media Director in response to Jon Ostrower of Wall Street Journal seems to reflect the general mood:

This week’s Latin America Business Aviation Conference and Exhibition has provided another poignant illustration of the de-facto use of Twitter in the aviation industry. As South America is one of the fastest growing markets for business aviation, all the major industry players and news outfits took to Twitter to share their news from and about the show: @AugustaWestland, @AVFuel, @Beechcraft, @Bombardier_Aero, @Cessna, @DallasAirmotive, @DassaultFalcon, @DuncanAviation, @GulfstreamAero, @Honeywell_Aero, @NBAA, @One_Bell (Bell Helicopters), @RockwellCollins, and @Turbomeca, as well as, @AINonline, @ASDNewsCom, @AviationToday, @FlightCorporate, and @FlightGlobal. In total, several hundred accounts tweeted about LABACE.

But what the organizers failed to do was to organize, feed and manage this Twitter channel. As a result, messages were posted in three different streams (#LABACE, #LABACE14, and #LABACE2014) or without any hashtags, making it impossible to isolate a channel for the show on Twitter. In addition, there was no direct voice from the organizers (even though they had a Twitter account back in 2011). Finally they failed to create buzz about this very important business aviation event before, during or after the show. It should not have been complicated for the organizers to figure out what to do, as their middle east (@MEBA) and european conterparts (@EBACE) are doing a great job with their respective shows.

THREE REASONS ORGANIZERS CAN NO LONGER IGNORE TWITTER:

Exhibitors, visitors and the press are tweeting about your show: As Farnborough has shown, aviation companies are now using Twitter as a main stream communication tool. It is no longer possible to think that Twitter will not be used at your show. This is why it it important to do two things: 1) establish a Twitter account for the show, and 2) create a hashtag for the event. The hashtag will allow you to establish a “channel” on Twitter which will be easy for everyone to use and follow. When choosing a hashtag, make sure it is not too long and is not already used for something else. Also, it is not necessary to incorporate the year into the hashtag as Twitter archives can easily be filtered by date. With the Twitter account, start interacting with the exhibitors early and promote the hashtag with them, the press and on the event website. Also, don’t forget to submit it to this hashtag event list page.

Not everyone can be physically at the show: Your target audience is much larger than the relatively few that will be able to travel to the event. Remote users will leverage the power of Twitter to follow the show and in turn help their case for traveling to the next one, or at least help with its promotion in the industry. Twitter is like an infinite mailing list and you never know who might be interested in your event. But with Twitter, there is a better chance they will find out about you.

You must manage your own buzz: Professionals following you or our hashtag on Twitter should feel that they are missing out by not being at the show. This is how you create buzz. Start by posting information early (e.g. registration volumes, major exhibitor participation, press coverage). During the show, post pictures, video recaps and other “behind the scenes” information that would not be found elsewhere. After the show, thank the visitors and exhibitors, recap how great the show was, and prepare for the next event.

This work does not need to be intensive or costly, but is no longer optional. If show organizers cannot do it themselves, they can certainly hire a contractor on a temporary basis to help them with their online/twitter presence. (Full disclosure: This is a service I provide). I look forward to seeing more use of Twitter and innovative online marketings around the virtual side of the physical aviation events.

Have you seen good examples of aviation show organizers user Twitter or failing to do so? Please start a discussion below with your comments.

As the statistics for the recent Farnborough air show demonstrated, the aerospace industry is finally warming up to direct online communication using Twitter. But as companies activate their accounts, many don’t seem to bother learning how to use this tool effectively. In particular, I am shocked at how many professionals misuse or simply don’t use hashtags in their tweets.

What is a “hashtag” anyway? Well beyond its technical definition, or this great guide for beginners, hashtags are a way for your tweets to reach people that do not necessarily follow you. This is particularly important for small companies or any aerospace company just starting on Twitter. At the beginning, no one knows your company is one of the over 230 millions accounts on Twitter. The chances that people you want to talk to follow you are very slim. Hashtag are a way to “tag” your tweets with a particular topic so that people interested in these topics will see your posts.

THREE REASONS TO USE HASHTAGS IN AEROSPACE

TRADE SHOWS: Most of the aerospace events will select a hashtag to facilitate online communication. For example, Farnborough used #FIA14, and the upcoming MRO Europe show will use #MROE. You can find a list of all the major aerospace event hashtags on this dedicated page. If you want to participate in the conversation and reach people that are interested in the show, you MUST include these hashtags in your posts. I was surprised to see major news and corporate organizations posting at a recent show WITHOUT the hashtag. I don’t know why they even bothered as what they posted was missed by the majority of people interested in the show.

AREA OF EXPERTISE OR INTEREST: It is important to try to have at least one hashtag in every tweet you post. But the tags have to be relevant and meaningful. For example, the tag #AVMRO has been used consistently to identify posts related to aviation maintenance, repair and overhaul. You can find a list of the most common aerospace topical hashtags on this dedicated page. What if you have a topic for which there is no hashtag? Well, feel free to make one up. Search Twitter to make sure it is not already in use, and then start posting it consistently. You can add it to this list, and it will start to spread slowly. You can also use some “flavor” hashtags to punctuate your tweets. For example, #AVgeek or #FAIL are popular tags to put at the end of a tweet to indicate, respectively, a post that aviation lovers will dig or something that should not have happened. Finally, the tag #FF (for Follow Friday) appears every Friday to suggest accounts worth following. It is used with a list of accounts and usually a reason or topic for the recommendation.

NEWS TOPICS: as opposed to the hashtags above that are more “permanent”, sometimes there will be news items or topics that are generating online conversations relevant for a few days or weeks. A recent example was the destruction of the Malaysian Airlines aircraft over Ukraine. Discussion around this subject, which reached way outside of the aerospace industry, was tagged with #MH17 after the aircraft call sign on that flight. If you have something to contribute to this conversation, you MUST use the hashtag to be heard.

In conclusion, please always use at least one hashtag when you post on Twitter. The only exception would be if you post something directly addressed at your followers, a specific user or a group of users. It is OK to replace words by hashtags to save characters, but it is NOT OK to overuse hashtags for no good reason.

Do you have questions or comments about the use of hashtags in aerospace or in general? Please feel free to start a discussion below.